public String serialize() {
String preData = unencodedSerialize();
Base64 b64 = new Base64();
String encodedSerializedData = null;
try {
encodedSerializedData = b64.encode( preData.getBytes("UTF-8") );
} catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
encodedSerializedData = b64.encode( preData.getBytes() );
}
return encodedSerializedData;
}